Post by rmarks1 on Sept 1, 2019 20:21:53 GMT -5

The High School Course Beijing Accuses of Radicalizing Hong Kong

HONG KONG — They are sitting in orderly rows, wearing neatly pressed uniforms. But in this class, as they debate the merits of democracy and civil rights, Hong Kong high school students are prompting Beijing to worry that they are increasingly out of control.

The mandatory civics course known here as liberal studies has been a hallmark of the curriculum in Hong Kong for years, and students and teachers say the point is to make better citizens who are more engaged with society.

But mainland Chinese officials and pro-Beijing supporters say the prominence of the city’s youth at recent mass protests is the clearest sign yet that this tradition of academic freedom has gone too far, giving rise to a generation of rebels.

“The liberal studies curriculum is a failure,” Tung Chee-hwa, a former leader of Hong Kong, said in July. “It is one of the reasons behind the youth’s problems today....

In recent months, officials in Beijing have repeatedly stressed the need for stronger patriotic education in Hong Kong...

Now, the liberal studies curriculum appears to be moving to the front line of that struggle again. It is a high school course designed to instill critical thinking skills and covers topics ranging from Hong Kong identity to climate change. When it comes to the mainland, the official curriculum focuses on the party’s recent economic achievements. But teachers are given a wide berth to teach topics that Beijing sees as subversive.

That includes studying the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989 or the life of Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who died in 2017 while in Chinese government custody for his involvement in a petition calling for democratic reform.

Many educators and democracy advocates in Hong Kong say the course teaches students to be analytical and objective, even when it comes to examining the party’s flaws. To present a distorted version of history, they argue, is to undermine the intellectual rigor of a system that has consistently ranked among the top in global education indexes.

“They want to make young people dumber and less aware,” said Hoi Wai-hang, 38, who has taught liberal studies for 10 years.

“To some extent, liberal studies awakened these young minds to the view that by joining in protests you can achieve change,” said Willy Lam, a political analyst who teaches at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

“That’s Beijing’s biggest nightmare,” Mr. Lam added. “They will pull out all the stops to remedy the situation.”

Liberal studies was first introduced by British colonial administrators in 1992 as an elective in part to ease concerns about the future in the years leading up to the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule. In 2009, the course was made mandatory.

Nothing like it exists in schools on the mainland. There, Mr. Xi has presided over a vigorous campaign to recenter Chinese society around ideology, specifically “Xi Jinping Thought,” his self-branded philosophy, which was written into China’s Constitution. In classrooms, children as young as 7 are taught to love the Chinese Communist Party and recite party slogans.